VOLUME 15, NUMBER 30 THE MONTH OF THE GEESE MARCH 17, 1987
Lakota speaker stresses the need for a personal philosophy
A teen-aged boy died a few years ago on the Reservation, the same way other young people died before him and have died since: mixing alcohol or drugs with two or four wheels.
His name was Antoine Paul "Stoney" Curley. He lost control of his motorcycle on June 4, 1982, and four agonizing days later, died. He was only 17.
His parents, Ida and Dominick "Sonny" Curley, have done something brave every year since then: In spite of the pain of the memory, they tell Stoney's story to everyone who will listen in the hope that someone will pay attention and not repeat their son's mistake.
Each spring, they and other relatives gather together to sponsor the Curley Memorial and Youth Conference in St. Ignatius. This year's effort (like last year's) was co-sponsored by the Tribal Health Dept. and drew the largest crowd so far, thanks in part to Two Eagle River School and the St. Ignatius school district allowing their upper-grade students to attend.
The large crowd can also be attributed to the keynote speaker, Billy Mills of Olympics-and-movie fame.
Mill's 45-minute presentation included a rousing film clip and radio broadcast excerpt about his surprising win of a gold medal at the 1964
Olympics. He was the first American to ever win the 10,000-meter race (roughly 6.2 miles) and the second Native American ever to get the gold (the first was Jim Thorpe).
Thirty years, "and maybe 25 pounds" later, he said, he's still not tired of re-living the moment, or-of-sharing it with others as a true story of how disadvantaged people can work to be successful.
He said that he had to train for 15 years before being good enough to qualify for the world-class race. That in itself was hard, and it was made more difficult because he was poor, an orphan and a mixed-blood Indian from South Dakota.
The fact that he won a gold medal wasn't the point of his talk March 6 at the Curley Memorial, though, he said. Working hard to succeed wasn't even the point, as he told of fellow racers who had trained equally long, only to meet defeat in a mere few minutes.
(Concludes on page four)
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